


As Curtains Fall

by laurendong



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23113927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurendong/pseuds/laurendong
Summary: As time went by, Death will take the heir to the Hapsburg throne.是《安眠》的英文版，可以不必额外花时间。
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is a text originally written by me in Chinese and since I am non-native to English, these may not be the easiest words to read. I’d love to know what do you think about it so leave a comment when you can. Thank you for reading.

A five-year-old boy named Rudolf was taken ill.

He lied on a large bed; his body vanishingly sunken in the silk coverlet; his face reddened and covered in sweat.

The court physician came daily to his care, bringing along bitter cure of various kinds, but none had yet come to ease his pain.

Rudolf adores the company of a Madame Katherina, who was assigned to be his care-taker. But days had gone since Rudolf last saw her, and it started to worry him a bit.

For quite a few days only his Grandma stayed with him. While she is roughly the same age as Madame Katherina, Rudolf finds it hard to grow a fondness for her.

She loves him. That Rudolf is sure of, but her love certainly is quite curious.

Grandma would cavil about his manners at dinner table, but Madame Katherina would save him mouth-watering cakes and he could grab them with bare hands.

Grandma would look at him with disappointment when he shied from the soldiers, but Madame Katherina would whisper to him the silly things they had done when they were only young lads.

Grandma would fix her eyes on his shoulder, commanding him to walk in an upright manner, but Madame Katherina would button him up and stand him in front of a dressing mirror. She’d say,“What a fine young man!”

…

Grandma never smiles, but Madama Katherina does.

But for the present moment no one but him was in the airy bedroom, not even Grandma.

Rudolf sensed thirsty, but no sound he could make even though he tried. Half-sleeping in dizziness, he thought he heard words of reproach outside his bedroom door.

“I would assume that you have heard the words of the physician.” It was Grandma, thought Rudolf, as he vaguely recognised her voice, “It might be typhoid, contagious, extremely! You should have known better…whatever the excuse might be.”

“I apologise my Highness. I am deeply sorry, but if I were to be banished from his side, Rudo…His Royal Highness will most certainly…”

“He will not.” Rudolf heard his Grandma lowering her voice as if she had been taken by resentment, “I must ask you not to overestimate yourself, nor to underestimate the Crown Prince, for he is the heir to the throne, and has an iron-like will just like his father.”

“But…”

The voices seemed to have gone far far away, but the door remained closed.

In quietness it occurred to Rudolf, that Madame Katherina will never be back in this room ever again.

It’s fine.

It is fine.

It shall be fine.

He still has his mother. His gorgeous mother.

“The beauty who honours the royal family,” as he once heard, “the brightest jewel on the crown of Hapsburg with an overwhelming glamour.”

He remembers her with long curly hair of light chest-nut colour, eyes in pale marble brown, and delicate countenance incomparable in the entire court.

But most importantly she smiles. The smile on her face was different from that on Madame Katherina. It was bright, delightful, and he knew it was a smile dedicated to her only son.

Even though their meetings were never without company – Madame Katherina, other Ladies admitted to the court, and sometimes his sister Gisela – Rudolf had been convinced her smile was for him exclusively.

This, however, serves as another explanation for his lack of affection for his Grandma. 

Rudolf noticed her mother’s smile vapouring every time on the sight of his Grandma. Her chest-nut colored hair would swiftly dim and her light marble eyes immediately stopped glisten, as if the clouds had interrupted the sun.

She would then leave the room in an almost spiky manner.

An audience expected for a month or even a few months would thus come to conclude, marking the end of a joyful yet passing moment.

Rudolf learned to hide his reluctance on such occasions as soon as he noticed that Grandma would be tougher than usual on that particular day scheduled for his reunion.

But he knows for a fact that his mother loves him.

Her slender fingers had run through his soft hair, with his childish figure mirrored in her eyes. 

She has been forced to depart from him, against her will, and she would definitely weep in secrecy for missing her child.

She must have loved him, and she must still do, for what other reasons would she smile at him as she did?

The doors were pushed open, and Rudolf could hear the rustling sound of a woman’s dress.

He opened his eyes. There it was, in his Grandma’s eyes, a mixture of deep concerns and feverish hope. It stared at him.

“Will Mama come visit me?” He asked, and ran his tongue round his lips.

Almost immediately there was disappointment in Grandma’s eyes.

“As the Crown Prince, Rudolf, you are meant to be brave and strong, rather than leaning on a mother who preferred a vacation in Bavaria to her bed-ridden son.”

Rudolf found himself in a nightmare.

Grandma told him Mama was unwilling to halt her Bavarian vacation. She traveled, went hourse-riding and attended theatres, but stepped away from his bed.

How could this be? Isn’t she worried about her sick son?

The messages she sent were written beautifully in slender letters, slightly tilting like her elegant figure. They were placed in a casket on his nightstand.

Rudolf sat up from his bed, holding the casket in his arms, and landed his bare feet on the embroidered carpet.

Portrays of the past Hapsburg Emperors and Empresses occupied the walls, valiant or elegant, but the Palace seemed empty.

Woods were burning in the fireplace, but Rudolf felt his limbs were freezing. He tried to call his mother, yet still no sound could be made.

All of a sudden there was a voice of a man drifting in the air. 

“She will not hear you.” The voice answered.

“Who is it?” Rudolf asked, turning himself around trying to identify where it came from.

“Come, my child. Come.” It seemed to have originated from his mother’s bedroom chamber, whose owner, being too passionate about traveling by herself, had been missing here for long.

Rudolf followed the voice to the chamber. The doors were left ajar, and the curtains were down, shading the room from any possible sunlight.

“A friend of you mother, I am,” said the voice, as Rudolf’s eyes suddenly glistened. Mama dislikes speaking to Father, neither does he, yet she never wanted to introduce him to her company.

“Your words are audible to me only.”

Now that Rudolf walked closer, he could see it came from a tall, slim man; his hair the colour of gold, his eyes black, and his skin pale. It reminds Rudolf of the snow he once saw on evergreen shrubs.

The man was seated on his mother’s bed. He reached his hand to Rudolf.

The young prince walked to him, reaching out his hands as well. As the Crown prince, his subjects take it as the highest honour to kiss his hand. At least that is what the Professor of Etiquette and Grandma insisted.

But the man moved not.

“I am a friend of your mother.” He repeated.

Rudolf caved in, as he knows the etiquettes of his Grandma boast no pleasure to his mother. He held the man’s hand, and sat next to him with a bit of help.

“Why won’t Mama come and visit me? Did she send you?”

“It is *my* wish to be your friend.” The man answered vaguely, turning his head gaze at the boy unblinkingly.

“My friend?” Rudolf avoided the Obsidian-like eyes.

“You are very much alone, but you shall always find me present when you are in need of company. I shall stay by yourside just as I attended your mother.”

“You are a loyal friend.” Rudolf smiled, “Will you linger a bit longer with me till Mama come?”

The man nodded.

“This is wonderful!” Rudolf held onto the man’s arms. “Gisela has to take her lessons, and Madame Katherina is gone. I was alone, but now, I have a friend!”

In silence, the man watched the boy filled with excitement, and caressed his soft light-brown hair. He held the boy to his arms, and Rudolf rested on his chest.

“Mama once wrote to me. She asked me not to forget her. I was quite upset.” Rudolf started talking in a rather depressed voice. “I shall never forget her, not in a million years. I don’t like Father, and I think he feels the same way about me. Last time he and Grandma must have found it a disgrace for me to be terrified. But the officers from the army…they marched so loudly in their boots. They scared me.”

The boy stopped, but he heard nothing but silence.

“I like Mama more than the rest of them. She smiles, and she once taught me a song. She said I was a bright child. She’s away a lot, too often maybe. But I know she has to. It’s dreary in here, with Grandma and all these grow-ups. Why wouldn't she take me with her?”

“I wish I could ride as Mama did, followingthe wind down the hill. She said she was too occupied to write me letters. Theanimals in Bavarian forests are fascinating, and she’s got invitations everysingle day from her friends. They need her company…”

Rudolf’s heavy lid drooped as the drowsiness creeped in. His voice floated like a whisper, “But I need her as much as they do…”

The strange man tucked him into bed. He bended for a close look at the boy’s face.

The eyes of a romanticist. A sharp bridge of the nose resembling his father. Lips revealing sternness when compressed, but now looking quite gentle in his sleep.

A boy destined to shy from happiness.

He drew his conclusion while laying a finger on the boy’s lips.

“But that will matter not, for by you side I shall stay.”

When Rudolf finally woke from the dream, his fever had gone. He sat up suddenly from his bed, and took the casket into his arms. The letters were still well organised as they used to be, with a new one sitting on top.

“Your mother had it sent for you.”

Rudolf’s hand froze in the air. He looked up, and it was his father at the door.

“She cherishes you.” The Emperor was every bit as majestic as he normally was, and nothing about him had changed simply because he was talking to his recently recovered son.

“Do not hurt her, not ever again.”

He turned and left the room after the words, and Rudolf was instantly relieved.

He opened the letter, only to find it carried nothing but a simple sentence. 

“Dear Rudolf,” she wrote, “I have nothing left to tell you as I just finished a lengthy letter to Gisela.”

The boy seemed to have been taken aback. He wanted to ask who was it that delivered this message, but the new care-take was a serious Madame whom he knew nothing of.

“At least she sent her friend, and that means more than anything else.” Rudolf thought to himself, and took his medication with perfect obedience.

“Typhoid is not that bad after all.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the age of seven, they met again.

A pistol was fired in the Crown Prince’s bedroom chamber. 

Rudolf squeezed his comforter with a scream as a vase placed in the corner of the chamber shattered by a bullet into pieces, his limbs crawling and his lips twitching.

The Madame entrusted to be his care-taker ran from the nearby room. She was in such a hurry that she never noticed a shoe was lost on her way.

It was Major General Count Gondrecourt, the Crown Prince’s governor, standing at the door of his young pupil’s chamber.

“God forgive me, for what is this…”The Madame was shocked, as anyone would be.

The Count, however, was too furious to provide an answer. He was all tidied up, dressed in the military uniform, and his eyes fixed on the child.

“A Crown Prince,” he scorned, “should always be ready. You of all people should know what His Majesty expects of you. But here you are, in your insidiously warm bed, though you know for a fact that our drill starts at four o’clock, sharp!”

“Oh but it is raining outside, Sir, and this is a cold autumn morning, the Crown Prince is but a child…”

“I have to insist that you, Madame, to refrain from uttering another word since I have no idea how to explain my rudeness towards a respectable lady!”

Silence fell, per his request, and Gondrecount walked to the child. He was fairly short, but even among grown men he could be described as strong. The boy, however, was as thin as a young child could be.

Gondrecount held the child’s arm and pulled him out of bed, as if he was holding a puppy.

Rudolf struggled, but before he could escape he was placed on the floor, standing there barefoot.

Then he heard Gondrecount saying, “Get him dressed, Ma’am. I must see him in the courtyard as soon as possible.”

The dawning hours in a late autumn are not born to please. The wind was freezing cold, bringing along with him the numbing rain. It was as if the sun had never bothered to visit this place.

Rudolf’s uniform was completely soaked, his hair glued to his face, sending down streams of the falling rain into his mouth. He trembled uncontrollably, and the squeaky chattering of his teeth sneaked into his brain via his bones.

Count Gondrecount stood in the pouring rain with the boy and shouted out drill commands.

“Squad! Stand! Forward! March! Movefaster! Faster! Not slower, can’t you understand my words?”

The squeaking chattering was all that Rudolf could hear, teeth striking teeth, bones chafing bones. The palace was dark. All he could see was a lantern hanging up above the doorsteps. Its light drifted in the wind, stopping him from tripping in the dark.

Rudolf could no longer feel his body. It was as if he was looking down on himself high up in the air, watching an adult military officer abusing a boy who was allegedly the heir to the Empire.

No one objected as no one thought this to be wrong. No one but his mother.

For a few times he overheard his parents quarreling over him.

“Can’t you see they are torturing him?” It was his mother’s voice in anger, “Rudolf is only SEVEN years' old. How could you be so cruel as to allow this excruciation?”

His father refused to compromise.“Excruciation? My dear, will you listen to what you are saying? He is the heir to the throne, and he needs to be a warrior as fierce as Achilles. As a mother you need to be his armor, Sisi. Do not be Thetis, for our son should not be bestowed with vulnerable heels.”

It was from conversations like this that Rudolf learned his mother’s love.

She did not visit him frequently, and over the past six months she would lock herself in her chamber even during the visiting hours.

Would she come to his rescue, just like two years ago? Would she again send her trusted friend to save him from nights and days sunken in solitude?

“Left! Jump! Kick hard! I said HARD!”

Rudolf executed everything that was commanded, though he could distinctively sense his temperature and vigor draining in the coldness.

“Right! Lift your legs! Try to kick like you are alive!”

Rudolf could not really tell if it was because sanity had abandoned him, or if it was the non-stopping rain.

He thought he saw the lantern on the doorsteps taken off, and the man holding it walked to him. The light stopped drifting in his hand, and soon enough Rudolf found the source of the light in front of him, completely indifferent to the rain.

Rudolf looked up and halted. Two years went by, yet his friend from the dark never left his mind. The expected scolding never came, and Count Gondrecount’s voice vapored.

Rudolf felt the chilling cold chased away.

“Did Mama send you?” asked the boy.

The man lent a hand, just like he did when they met for the first time.

“No. I came because I heard you.”

Rudolf held onto his hand, and let him guide the way to the bedroom chamber. 

Strangely enough, any traces of the rain had disappeared. Everything was suddenly dry and warm, but it was not something that could draw away Rudolf’s attention. He obediently lied down in his bed and allowed the man to tuck him in. The silk comforter tightly surrounded his neck, forming an imaginary fence between him and any possible danger. It was a habit Rudolf had developed recently. 

The broken pieces of the vase were still scattered on the carpet. The unexpected visitor to the court picked up one of them, and cut his own wrist with its knife-like edge. 

Rudolf started to worry as he feared there would be red-colored blood streaming down the man’s hand, but nothing happened. The porcelain piece did nothing to him.

The boy’s eyes were wide open in surprise.

“Are you not hurt?” He asked, in a voice full of curiosity, as if the pain and fear in the rain had been wiped out entirely.

The man let go of the porcelain piece, and walked a few steps to sit by the boy’s bed.

“Each and every day some do this to themselves to terminate their lives.” he answered, “and it seems to them the pain is an affordable price.”

“How do you know that?” Rudolf’s question followed.

“I am always there.”

The answer clearly failed to satisfy the Crown Prince.

“Why would people tell you that?”

The man seemed to have been amused; a smile almost rested on his lips.

“I am Der Tod.” He answered, “Every single idea of every single human being lies bare before me, and knowingly or not, people do as I command.”

Death is not a foreign idea to the boy. As a part of the drilling, Rudolf had been asked to kill all sorts of things. It was only a few days ago he strangled a cat.

“And I am the Crown Prince,” Rudolf protested, “My father is the Emperor. The people should be following MY orders, for I am the rulers of the Empire.”

Der Tod laughed. “I would be merrier than any living soul to see you sit on the throne. Rudolf sounds much more pleasant than Francis Joseph.”

Rudolf never thought about it in this way, so he frowned bit. Father obviously hopes him to be the Emperor, but he could sense it was a different kind of expectation from what his friend here just suggested.

“To be the ruler, to decide the fate of millions,” Der Tod continued, “to guard the dignity of Hapsburg, and to honor the double-headed eagle – that sure is your destiny, is it not?”

Rudolf nodded, his hands clenching into fists. “I shall take Hapsburg to a higher glory!”

He sworn it like an oath, readily leaving behind the sufferings he had just been saved from.

Der Tod’s fingers gently ran through Rudolf’s hair: “Your mother will be very proud.”

Rudolf collapsed back to the pressured child on hearing the words. His pale blue eyes shined with hope.

“Is Mama well?” He asked, “Will she come and visit me?”

“Your mother,” Der Tod’s anger had been replaced by deep regrets.

The Empress of Austria is said to have a forehead of a Greek Goddess, eyes like the most intoxicating wine. Her voice is said to be constantly gentle, and her face as amicable as any woman can possibly be. She is said to have a maidenly air - the manifestation of the unfathomable beauty, she is, on this bleak world.

Yet obstinacy and desperation have possessed her the same way fireweeds possess a deserted garden, they straggle all the way up on her viscera, in an almost chocking manner.

The most veiled scandal of the Hapsburg dynasty.

Der Tod once again noticed the similarity between the boy and his mother.

The Crown Prince of Austria has rights to everything but his free will.

He was placed high up in the air by birth, and there are no stairs for him to step down. The only access to the worldly pleasures and the ordinary happiness demands a fall – it demands a never-ending struggle, a leap into the void, and a complete surrender of his life.

“Your mother,” Der Tod answered, “she is composing a letter addressed to your father. You will soon have a new governor…”

And I will lose her for one more time.

Der Tod never shared the remaining half of that sentence. He watched joy taking over the boy’s face, and could not help but reached out for his cheeks.

Rudolf’s fingers gradually lost their grip. He felt comfort with the touch of the man. It was nothing like his father’s sternness, nor his mother’s detachment. He felt love walking into his heart, and love puts him at ease.

The boy sat up from his bed, and rested on Der Tod’s knees.

“Stay with me.” He said the words, and quietly fell asleep.

Der Tod has made him a promise.

Der Tod keeps his promise always.


End file.
